RUINOUS DEVOTION

⚠️ AUTHOR'S NOTE & CONTENT WARNING ⚠️

Welcome to Verenor.

Before you step into the dark, please read the following warnings. Ruinous Devotion is a Dark Fantasy Romance. It is not a sweet, fluffy love story.

This book contains:

🩸 Explicit sexual content (Smut)

🖤 Morally grey, possessive, and toxic male leads

🩸 Blood, gore, and graphic violence

🖤 Themes of betrayal, obsession, and dark magic

🩸 Slow-burn romance and a fast pace story (There will be tension, angst, and waiting. Please don't complain about the slow burn—it makes the payoff so much sweeter!)

This is a work of fiction. I do not condone the toxic behaviors, possessiveness, or actions of the characters in real life. This is purely for entertainment, dark romance fantasy, and escapism.

This story, including all characters, plotlines, world-building, and original dialogue, is the exclusive intellectual property of the author.

No part of this book may be reproduced, distributed, translated, or transmitted in any form or by any means (including copying and pasting, screen-recording, or republishing on other websites/apps) without the prior written permission of the author.

If you are sensitive to any of the themes listed above, please prioritize your mental health and skip this book.

If you love unhinged vampires, feral werewolves, dragons who kneel, and a heroine who rises from the ashes to become a Queen... then you are in the right place.

Welcome to the monster's den.

Happy reading! 🥀🖤

— Tasha

VIVIENNE POV

The key slid into the deadbolt with a whisper of brass, three hours ahead of schedule.

My fingers were stiff from the autumn chill, cramped around the strap of my weekender bag and the small, heavy velvet box tucked into my coat pocket.

Two years.

Seven hundred and thirty days since Nathan had slid the platinum band onto my finger beneath a canopy of white roses, promising me a lifetime of unwavering devotion.

For the last seven months, that promise had felt like a glass pane beneath a tightening boot. Strained, brittle, threatening to splinter at the slightest pressure.

That was why I had cut my archival conference short. I had driven the final eighty miles through sleet with my heater stuck on a dry, rattling hum, fueled by a desperate need to outrun the distance growing between us.

I wanted to salvage what was left.

I wanted my husband back.

The front door clicked open, and the heavy silence of the house rolled out to meet me.

It was too quiet. Not the comforting hush of an empty home, but a charged stillness that made the hairs on my arms prickle.

I stepped into the foyer, kicked off my wet loafers, and frowned.

A pair of shoes sat beside the console table.

They weren’t mine.

Louboutins. Black patent leather, with razor-thin heels and a slight scuff along the red lacquered soles. I knew the shoes. I had seen them before, although my mind seemed reluctant to make the connection.

A cold knot formed in my stomach.

I set my bag down on the slate tile. My gaze drifted upward, tracing the grand staircase that curled toward the second-floor landing.

Draped over the polished mahogany banister was a scrap of pale emerald silk.

A Gucci scarf.

I knew that scarf.

I had watched Sabrina tie it around her neck just three weeks ago over brunch, laughing as she complained about a client at her PR firm.

Sabrina.

My childhood best friend. The maid of honor at my wedding. The girl who had held me, who knew every secret I had ever buried, who had sworn that Nathan was a saint for putting up with my nocturnal research habits and quiet, bookish moods.

No.

My mind reached for excuses before I could stop it.

Perhaps she had dropped by. Perhaps Nathan had invited her over. Perhaps there was some perfectly reasonable explanation for why my best friend’s shoes were downstairs and her scarf was hanging from my staircase.

I was exhausted. That was all.

My feet moved before I could convince myself to stay where I was.

Every step toward the stairs felt agonizingly slow. I didn’t want to make a sound. I was terrified of what I might interrupt, yet some morbid part of me needed to know.

The upstairs hallway was dim, carpeted in thick gray wool that swallowed the sound of my footsteps.

The door to our master bedroom stood an inch ajar.

A sliver of warm light spilled onto the dark floorboards.

And with it came the sound.

A low, heavy rhythm. The dull slap of skin against skin, accompanied by a woman’s breathless moan.

My hand reached out, my fingertips brushing the white paneling.

I pushed the door open.

The world didn’t shatter. It simply dissolved into a slow-motion nightmare that would remain burned into my memory long after the moment had passed.

They were on the bed.

My bed.

The custom charcoal silk sheets I had spent three weeks tracking down because Nathan had once casually remarked that he liked the way cool silk felt against his skin.

Nathan was on top, his broad back glistening with sweat, his muscles moving with every thrust. His dark hair was damp, clinging to his forehead.

Beneath him, her legs locked around his waist, was Sabrina.

Her head rested against my pillows. Her blonde hair spilled across the silk, her lips parted, her expression one of complete abandon.

When the creaking of the door interrupted them, Nathan’s movements faltered.

He looked up.

Sabrina followed his gaze.

I expected her to scramble away. To gasp, cover herself, or at least have the decency to look ashamed.

Instead, her chin tilted upward.

Her eyes locked onto mine with a sickening, lazy audacity. She reached for Nathan’s shoulder and pulled him toward her, kissing him again while never once looking away from me.

Nathan eventually turned his head.

I expected horror.

I expected shame, or at least the decency of a stuttered apology.

Instead, his pale blue eyes met mine with chilling annoyance, as though I were an inconvenience interrupting his evening.

“Vivienne,” he said.

He didn’t move away from her.

“You’re back early.”

The velvet box in my coat pocket suddenly felt like a lump of lead.

My breath caught somewhere behind my ribs.

“Yes,” I managed.

My voice sounded thin and detached, as though it belonged to a stranger standing somewhere outside my body.

“Clearly.”

Nathan exhaled a slow, bored sigh. He shifted away from Sabrina and reached for the duvet, pulling it across her waist. He didn’t bother covering himself.

He simply sat on the edge of the mattress, naked and unbothered, looking at me with the same expression he wore whenever I asked him an inconvenient question.

“Don’t look at me like that, Vivienne. Don’t play the wounded martyr.”

Sabrina gave a soft, throaty chuckle.

She propped herself up on one elbow, casually running a hand through her tousled hair.

“Honestly, Viv,” she purred. “What did you expect? You’ve been living in the library or buried in those dusty archives for the last two years. A man has needs. A real man.”

“Shut up, Sabrina,” Nathan muttered.

There was no heat in his voice. No genuine attempt to defend me.

It was the casual dismissal of two people who shared a language I had never been invited to learn.

I looked at them.

At the man I had married.

At the woman I had trusted more than anyone.

Something inside me didn’t break. It simply went quiet.

“How long?”

My voice didn’t shake.

Nathan glanced toward Sabrina before looking back at me. There was no panic in his expression, no desperate attempt to find an excuse. Only the faintest tightening of his jaw.

“Seven months. Maybe eight.”

He said it as though he were confirming the length of a business contract.

“Ever since you took that fellowship. You weren’t here, Vivienne. Sabrina was.”

He paused.

“It just happened.”

Happened.

As though seven months of lies were an unfortunate accident. As though he had somehow stumbled into my best friend’s bed and simply forgotten to find his way out.

I looked at Sabrina.

“Was any of it real?”

She tilted her head.

“Oh, don’t do that.”

“Don’t do what?”

“Act like you’re the only person who has ever been unhappy.”

I stared at her.

She had been in my wedding photographs. She had stood beside me while I promised to love Nathan until death parted us. She had smiled, cried, and hugged me afterward.

And now she was lying in my bed.

I reached into my coat pocket and pulled out the velvet box.

Nathan’s gaze briefly dropped to it.

I opened it.

Inside was a vintage 1920s silver pocket watch I had spent three months hunting down for our anniversary. The date of our wedding was engraved on the back.

I had imagined giving it to him that evening. I had imagined him smiling, perhaps pulling me into his arms and telling me how much he had missed me.

Instead, I simply opened my fingers.

The box fell onto the gray wool carpet with a soft, muffled thud.

“Have a nice anniversary.”

I turned around.

“Where are you going?” Nathan called.

His voice sharpened with irritation.

“Don’t make a scene, Vivienne. We can talk about this like adults.”

I didn’t answer.

I walked down the stairs, my movements mechanical and precise. In the foyer, I picked up my weekender bag. I didn’t take my coat. I left it hanging on the hook beside the umbrella we had bought together in Paris.

I walked out of the front door, leaving it wide open behind me. The freezing autumn wind swept through the house.

I didn’t look back.

___

The divorce took months.

Nathan’s lawyers made sure of that.

By the time I understood what was happening, the man I had married had already turned our separation into a battle I hadn’t known I was fighting.

My professional commitments became evidence of my supposed neglect. My archival conferences, research trips, and long hours spent studying manuscripts were presented as proof that I had abandoned my marriage.

My quiet nature became emotional detachment. My refusal to discuss private matters with strangers became evidence that I was unstable and difficult.

Nathan knew exactly how to make my life sound unreasonable.

Sabrina made sure everyone heard his version first.

She spoke to mutual friends, repeated carefully selected details, and allowed people to believe that she had somehow been the victim of a marriage that had already fallen apart.

People I had known for a decade suddenly developed an extraordinary inability to answer their phones.

Messages went unanswered. Invitations stopped arriving. Conversations ended when I entered a room.

I remember standing in the middle of a grocery store one afternoon, watching a woman I had known since university turn her cart around rather than acknowledge me.

It was such a small thing.

Somehow, it hurt more than I expected.

In the end, Nathan kept the house, the savings, and the polished veneer of his respectable life.

I walked away with my battered 2012 Honda Civic, a fraction of our joint account, and my professional credentials as a junior manuscript historian.

I had enough to find somewhere to live.

Barely.

And I had learned that the people who knew you best could become strangers with remarkable ease.

By late November, the packing was finished.

Rain hammered against the pavement, turning the suburban asphalt into a black mirror beneath the streetlights.

I heaved the second of my two scuffed suitcases into the trunk of the Civic. The springs groaned beneath the weight.

Everything I owned now fit inside that car.

I stood beside the driver’s door, looking back at the house.

The windows were dark. The curtains I had chosen were still hanging in the living room, and the small rosebushes I had planted beside the front path were bare for winter.

For a moment, I remembered Nathan holding my hand in the garden on the morning we moved in.

He had kissed my forehead and told me we would be happy there.

I wondered whether he had believed it.

Then I wondered whether it mattered.

I wiped the rain from my face and climbed into the driver’s seat. The damp upholstery smelled of mildew and old coffee. I turned the key, and the engine sputtered before catching with a coughing roar.

The heater wheezed into life, blowing lukewarm air against the windshield.

I had no family waiting for me. No friends to call. No home to return to.

Only a car, two suitcases, and a future I hadn’t planned.

I pulled away from the curb and turned north.

Ahead of me lay the mountains, shrouded in impenetrable fog and relentless rain. Beyond them was Verenor, a city of shadowed alleys, towering iron spires, and centuries of forgotten secrets.

I had accepted a position there after a month of searching for work far away from here. It was far enough from everything I knew, and I had convinced myself that distance was exactly what I needed.

A fresh start.

A place where nobody knew my name.

I thought I was driving toward a city where I could finally leave my past behind.

I had no idea I was driving straight into a world that had been waiting for me.